And then there's the art, tea and cake, the garden and music; in no particular order and with fun … then there will be days when there is no order and or fun. Either way my day posts from the print room, the cafe or the bike (which incidentally is usually parked in the garden when not in use) will be tempered accordingly

I come from Hampshire where the accent is slurred and lazy; we would drop ‘H’ and do not sound our consonants. Our teachers and my mother were strict about pronunciation and would make us recite this tongue twister when we dropped into lazy language.

Pupils in drama school too would use the poem as an exercise in articulation and rather cruelly the teacher would insist they added ‘off a pewter plate’ at the end of each line . You could be sure they were speaking the Queen’s English after that!

The practice is not new. In the Literary Leisure, or the recreations of Solomon Saunter (1802), the satirist Hewson Clarke (b. 1787) said that ‘Peter Piper was a particular favourite with me’ , should be rehearsed ‘three times without drawing a breath’ which ‘renders it an useful lesson in the art of elocution’.

I have heard that in Our village Mary Russell Mitford (1787 – 1855) remembers how her French mistress insisted that they translated Peter Piper into Gallic’ Now that is cruel!

Related

In many of the Southern states of the US, we have a tendency to drop our R’s. A word like mother become mu-thah. Sister becomes sis-tah or for some, sus-tah.

I was a speech major, and as such, I tried to develop more of a general American accent. Now, I wish I had majored in history and sounded more like Shelby Foote, the historian! 😉 He sounded like my father. Hard gutterals are harsh to a Southerner’s ears.

When we were in England with my mother, people often asked her to repeat herself. She was a little frustrated, but I think they loved to hear her speak. She had a lovely voice. Maybe they thought she sounded like Melanie Wilkes in GWTW. 😉

Speaking of which, the only actors, to me, that ever did a believable Southern accent besides Southerners themselves were all British. Think Vivien Leigh.